Publication
54338 (2 August 2022)
From Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme
Published on
Last updated on
From Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme
Published on
Last updated on
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal
In the matter of an application under the Scheme of Compensation for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted
Decision of a Single Member
Name of applicant: [ ]
Application number: 54338
Date of incident: [ ]
Date of application: [ ]
Decision/outcome: Applicant awarded €994.59.
1. Mr [ ] (‘the applicant’) has made a claim for compensation under the Scheme of Compensation for Personal Injuries Criminally Inflicted (‘the Scheme’).
2. In his application for compensation under the Scheme, received on [ ], the applicant stated that he was a victim of an unprovoked assault on [ ] which caused him significant facial injuries.
3. The applicant’s assailant was convicted for the assault on the applicant in the District Court on [ ]. The applicant’s assailant paid €3,000 to the applicant in compensation in the context of the hearing.
4. I am satisfied that the applicant has established, on the balance of probabilities, that he was a victim of a crime of violence and sustained personal injury which is directly attributable to that crime of violence. He submitted his application form within the correct timeframe. Accordingly, I admit the application for consideration under the Scheme.
5. On his application form the injuries are detailed as concussion and swelling to the right eye, nose and throat. The applicant states that he incurred medical costs, travel costs and loss of earnings. The applicant also supplied a victim impact statement which detailed the impact of the injury on his life and that of his family. It is very clear that the applicant was subject of a traumatic criminal incident.
6. The traumatic impact that the incident had on the applicant and his young family is acknowledged by the Tribunal. The Tribunal does not doubt that trauma, upset and anxiety was caused to the applicant and it sympathises with him for this. However sympathy cannot alter the terms of the Scheme under which the Tribunal is appointed, and under which it must operate.
7. In the current case this means that while it is clear that the incident was traumatic to the applicant and his family, and in particular occurred at a particularly sensitive time in their family’s life after the birth of a child, the Tribunal is not permitted to award compensation for pain and suffering. This is expressly excluded from the Tribunal’s power to award compensation under paragraph 6(e) of the Scheme.
8. Further, the Scheme mandates (at paragraph 15) that the Tribunal must deduct from its award any sum paid by way of compensation or damages to the victim of crime by the offender. As such the €3,000 paid by the applicant’s assailant to him in the context of the criminal trial must be deducted from the totality of any award calculated below.
9. The applicant’s claim for medical expenses was for €1,020 on his application form. In his victim impact statement the applicant states that private medical insurance paid the majority of his expenses, but that he was out of pocket in the sum of €1,040. The applicant supplied receipts and invoices for medical expenses to the Tribunal.
10. The table below sets out assesses the vouched medical expenses.
| Item | Detail | Discussion | Amount allowed |
| [ ] | Invoice from [ ] in sum of €550 | Details that this was for CT scans of facial bones, neck, brain and emergency consultation fee, all of which were required on the date of the incident and therefore can reasonably be found to be treatment required as a consequence. |
A note on file [ ] from the treating team gives more detail on the incident, injuries, investigation and treatment required.|€550|
| [ ] | Invoice from [ ] in sum of €180 | This was for services of a consultant otolarynogolist/rhinologist which appear from that doctor’s correspondence as being directly related to treatment required as a consequence of the incident | €180 |
| [ ] | Invoices in the sum of €120, €50 and €120 described as ‘return appointments’ | It is reasonable to accept that a number of return appointments were required to follow up on treatment, and indeed this is established by subsequent correspondence from the otolarynogolist/rhinologist as being directly related to treatment required as a consequence of the incident | €290 |
| Total provisionally allowed: | €1,020 |
11. The applicant states that he travelled 38 km round trip for 7 appointments to avail of medical treatment. 38km is the approximate distance between the [ ] hospital, where the applicant sought treatment, and [ ], where he lives. However the file has evidence of only four appointments for which the applicant would have had to travel.
12. The total proven travel (on the balance of probabilities) is therefore 152km. At the mid-point first band of the civil service rate of mileage (at 39.86c per kilometre) this amounts to €60.59 in allowable mileage expenses.
13. The applicant states that as a consequence of the concussive impact of the incident he was not able to return to his work as [ ] which had impact on maintaining [ ]. The discharge letter from the [ ] Hospital of [ ] corroborates this. In an email to the Tribunal Secretariat dated [ ] the applicant states that he returned to work on [ ] and having been absent since [ ] was claiming for 13 weeks’ loss of earnings.
14. The applicant in his supplied victim impact statement claims that his loss of earnings amounted to between €7,500 and €10,000 for the five months he was unable to work. He states that as a consequence of not being [ ] able to work at one of the busiest times of the year. He states that his loss of earnings [ ] was around €1,500 - €2,000 per month.
15. The applicant supplied a P60 for the year ending [ ] which shows his income from that year. However without P60s from other years (that is, [ ] for a baseline, and [ ] as the absence from work spanned both [ ] and [ ]) it is difficult to ascertain what the loss of earnings may have been from this one document.
16. The applicant’s employer [ ] furnished a chart of his loss of earnings. It appears from that that the applicant was in receipt of sick pay from his employer [ ] and [ ], however his absence resulted in a loss to him of performance pay and ‘sector pay’. That, accounting for tax, resulted in a net loss to the applicant for the period of €2,194. The document also sets out the total loss to the employer in the same period, being €11,466.13.
17. The [ ] document specifies the loss which the applicant suffered in an objective fashion. The Tribunal accepts the figure that this document supplies as the applicant’s loss of earnings. It makes this finding in the absence of any other formal record of the applicant’s earnings from which an assessment of loss can be deduced. The larger sum alluded to by the applicant in his victim impact statement appears to be closer to the total loss sustained had sick pay not been paid to the applicant by his employer. As such the Tribunal awards €2,914 in respect of the applicant’s loss of earnings.
18. The combined medical and travel expenses and loss of earnings found to be attributable to this incident add up to €3,994.59. As set out above, the Tribunal must deduct from this sum the amount paid to the applicant by his assailant in compensation. Therefore, €3,000 must be deducted.
19. The Tribunal therefore awards the applicant €994.59 in compensation for the injuries criminally inflicted on him on [ ].
Tricia Sheehy Skeffington
Member, Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal
2 August 2022